Tag: urban history

Here is my book review of City Dreamers: The Urban Imagination in Australia by Graeme Davison. This review was published in Urban History journal in 2017, and reflects both on Davison’s important book and his broader contribution to the practice of urban history.

Outstanding Contribution to Journalism winner: Bruce Petty #Walkleys — Walkley Foundation (@walkleys) December 2, 2016 Bruce Petty was awarded the gong for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Journalism’ at the annual Australian Walkley journalism awards this evening. I first came across Petty as part of my research into Australian urban history. From the 1960s onwards, his political satire appeared across various periodicals including the Bulletin magazine, the Australian and the Age newspapers.

Two thousand and sixteen marks the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the National Trust of Victoria. Drawing from my research into heritage in Victoria, I wrote the following article for the National Trust of Victoria’s special anniversary magazine.

Last year I published a book review of What is Urban History? by Shane Ewen in the Melbourne Historical Journal (vol. 43). Since then, reviews have appeared on the LSE blog and in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, amongst other places. Ewen was also recently interviewed on the excellent German based Global Urban History blog . Written for an Australian audience, my review is republished below.

In July, a few hundred historians working in and on Australia assembled in Ballarat for the annual Australian Historical Association conference on the theme ‘From Boom to Bust’. This blog reflects on this conference from an urban perspective; the first in a series of posts on conferences that I have attended in mid-2016.

Urban history is one of the oldest forms of history practiced in Australia. Early local historians like A.W. Greig were interested in cities and its spaces. Similarly, since World War II, the Australian city has been subject to much local and academic historical analysis, and remains a perennially popular topic. After all, as Graeme Davison argues, Australia was effectively ‘born urban’. Since colonisation, much Australian history has played out in its cities even when this is not made explicit. After all, history must happen somewhere. Most often in Australia – where urbanisation rates hover around 80-90% – this is in cities.